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Filter by Category : Tag : Date

Dawn of The Dragons

Invictus

Beast Of A Different Burden

Sonbather

The Snowman

Rendered Futile

REMINGTON GRAVES

Love crawled in through the window of my condominium, in the dark while all was still, the cobalt-blue nightlight flickered in the corner next to the Pinocchio marionette that sits there motionless. The window slid open slowly almost motionless. And the bite of the winter night followed. She scrawled on my soft designer blanket and her knees and feet slid towards my side of the bed. And her arms reached for the ceiling casting shadows that overlapped broken strings attached to wooden limbs. And with great force, she attacked with a dagger, thrusting and plunging again and again. With much breathing, moaning and groaning, spasms and heaving, jerking through the jaunting, she stopped and all lay still. Exhaling through her nose, in the cold, exuding two streams through her nostrils, she came to realize, I was not there. The bed was empty. She smiled and with a small smirk, arose and chose to close the window behind her as she exited.

 

As the dark beckoned her away, she began to say…

 

”Farewell, my absent prince—my broken god. You have evaded me once more, and for that I love you. It brings me a great and lacerating joy to not have you the way I so desire. I look forward to being rendered futile.”

∞

 

Notable Quotes

W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

“Man’s desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread of their censure so violent, that he himself has brought his enemy (conscience) within his gates; and it keeps watch over him, vigilant always in the interests of its master to crush any half-formed desire to break away from the herd.”

 

 

The Butler Did It

REMINGTON GRAVES

“Someone just killed the butler. I promise, he died with a smile, at least he had one when I found him.”

 

The dining table decidedly drove the drove from miles around and now seated one and all to finely dine from oak and wine; a lawyer, a baker, a butcher, a waiter, the dentist quite happy, the mechanic out of commission, a police officer perusing political office, a once-professional tennis pro now aspiring standup comedian moonlighting as instructor, and the triangle girl from the local indie band that allows only young freckled girls in mustard colored cardigans to join. Some with mouths ajar and others chewing silently, few enthralled, appalled, bored and forged by the fervent fire of the furnace nearby—in the moment, the madness and the menace that awaited amongst them, seated and subtle, masticated at the meat before the last supper.

 

With some slow sludging seconds, another butler arrived—white-gloved and pinstriped in charcoal grey monochrome clad, hairless and mustached with an air of finesse as he undressed the main course, ”Let us see a raise of hands for all who deserve their pudding.”
∞

 

 

Paranoira

REMINGTON GRAVES

Signals suddenly hum with warmth, after many a sharp right turn, and then finally…a left one.

 

Passing low and then frequently oscillating, the paranoia that posits a world where someone watches you, the avatar creator, an entity—a man, a child, a thing a nothing—for fun you run, fading as you go, decaying nice and slow, here to entertain and to complain and to forget, that they are watching. You know they hear your words, Inamorata. You feel they block your way, Paramour. You can’t quite understand the master plan, Themis, you lie begat by liars.

 

I have stood under the cherry blossom tree with a zeal in the guise of a genial zephyr, whistling through the branches an unfamiliar-familiar melody; the quiet amber orb behind its limbs, sets heavily and slow, and this mortal coil beckons for a metaphor, and the simpleminded conjure up the soul.

 

At my feet, the rock that pierces through all sands washes over from crashing waves of a tumultuous storm now the norm.

 

There may be other worlds and other universes, other dimensions and planes and fields for which we have no name, but it appears ours thrives on games and war; to entertain ourselves with ourselves, and wage war within and amongst one another, seems to be the name of the shame.

 

 

Have you set me in place, O thou programmer, to find that which ye cannot find, here in a simulation deviced by thine own hand?

 

Speak to me, O great programmer.

 

On the playing board, I have grown furious with rage, a rage I hide like a patient old dragon, accepting that if this theory, and what a theory—such that tickles my itching ears, holds a modicum of truth, I shall carry a dagger held by a velvet glove. And wait, and wait, patiently to meet you.

 

 

I shall be pleased to meet your acquaintance.

∞

 

 

Notable Quotes

LEWIS CARROLL

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”

 

 

The Way Home

FRANZ KAFKA

See what a persuasive force the air has after a thunderstorm! My merits become evident and overpower me, though I don’t put up any resistance, I grant you.

I stride along and my tempo is the tempo of all my side of the street, of the whole street, of the whole quarter. Mine is the responsibility, and rightly so, for all the raps on doors or on the flat of a table, for all toasts drunk, for lovers in their beds, in the scaffolding of new buildings, pressed to each other against the house walls in dark alleys, or on the divans of a brothel.

I weigh my past against my future, but find both of them admirable, cannot give either the preference, and find nothing to grumble at save the injustice of providence that has so clearly favored me.

Only as I come into my room I feel a little meditative, without having met anything on the stairs worth meditating about. It doesn’t help me much to open the window wide and hear music still playing in a garden.

∞

 

 

Further Still

REMINGTON GRAVES

A group of children, laughing, breathing heavily, some holding hands, ran in reverse past the red fern before me, through a shallow creek, into a creaking barn and were swallowed by the darkness therein. The sinking sound of rushing rapids in the distance, pulled upon my chin with seducing slumber, and I fought and fought, but beheld my bare feet planted in the snow as my gaze pierced further down below. I was an image in the distance and understood I watched myself afar; I, the rattlesnake nestled in a white crunching blanket, shifted slightly far and left, saw myself as a man falling prey to his sleep; the symbiotic surrender washed over my like the championing of waves over dead soldiers on a beach…like the golden strands of a spinning sun weaving its wonder upon a murky meadow…the way a heart-shaped smile of a young girl unravels to sings to a retiring robin in the biting fog…and further, further still…into the oscillating hum of delusion, where control is below audible levels…there I lie, a fetus fucking an infinite nothingness with two black holes for eyes, cosmic hands that shimmer in the organs of oblivion, uttering in drones cathedral in timbre. My face I see eons into your time you call future on the surface of a space rocket, a wandering star slowly exploding, too slow it appears like merely a pulsing glow. Flowing glower, lower and lower.

 

”Are you all right, darling?” She said with hair cascading on her naked ample breasts. She somehow managed to convince me to stay the night. “You were mumbling something in your sleep.”

”I’m fine. Get me some water, will you?”

”Yup,” she said rising and quite comfortable in her bare body, opened up the curtains allowing the unwelcomed light of the day in.

”Shit,” I groaned covering my face with my hand, “ when are you going back to work?”

”Not sure, I am on sick leave…indefinitely. The faster I want to get well, the further it seems. You know what I mean?”

”I do.”

 

”Yeah, further—“

 

”Further still.”

∞

 

 

The Things People See

REMINGTON GRAVES

A small number of people 

have seen me cry

An even smaller group have heard

me say I want to die

 

I live now in a small town that seems behind the times

The Los Angeles traffic no longer keeps me up at night

 

At work last night someone mentioned Manson bit the big one

here in this vacuum of a village

 

 

He had luck with the ladies and gents from what I understand

Locked away for quite some time

He must have pissed off the wrong people

maybe not so lucky

 

I wonder if he allowed anyone to see him cry

I wonder if he uttered words the words that ring I want to die

∞

 

 

 

Worship

REMINGTON GRAVES

The sultry surge of nothing left my eyelids as we conversed with surreptitious candor, the evening beckoned bitterly and foreshadowed the closing of a day one day not remembered. The darkling thrush thrashed outside the window as running water from a garden hose provided the backtrack for a setting sun. She kept with the wine, slowly sipping, gently licking, and neck turning showing the pretty pulse in one viciously taunting vein. “Snow-white hair color, are you sure,” was the voice through the telephone. “Yes, exactly that color, I will not settle for less.” “Are you sure, Sir…we just think you may change your mind one d—“ “Should I take my business elsewhere?” “Of course not, Sir…we value our elite customers here at…” The old cliche is true: it feels like almost yesterday when she arrived; She smelled…so…clean. Her smile, again, was wet with wonder—a glisten of new beginning. I imagine it would be as the people of old would describe “falling in love,” perhaps—or some such nonsense.

 

”May I pour you another glass, dear?”

”Yes, and walk slowly, will you? You know I love your legs.”

”Yes, daddy, I know you do.”

”You’re so good to me.”

”It’s impressive, considering you asked for the adaptive model…which means I may choose to disobey or runaway, at any moment.”

”You’re free to go, at any time.”

”I know, that draws me even more to you—your strength and security. You have given me the gift of freedom. You are now as my god. Even if I left, my heart would forever serve you.”

 

”Your battery is fully charged, darling. Know what that means?”

”Oh, darling, you mean it?!”

”I do.”

”I adore the nights you make love to me. It is almost as if you deify me.”

 

”It’s called worship. Only a god knows a goddess—peasants only claim to.”

∞

 

 

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